Rats and Squirrels

Today was certainly an interesting day. I thought I was going to spend it pressure washing the back patio and doing other things, but when it started raining we decided to change the plan. Since we hadn’t seen Pixar’s newest film, Ratatouille, we decided to drive out to Atlantic Station, which is always an adventure of it’s own, to see the flick. Needless to say, it was a great movie, definitely worth seeing. My full review can be found at Rotten Tomatoes. Usually we spend a little more time at Atlantic Station, but it ended up being a sort of stop and go for us today. After the movie we headed on over to Lenox Square, just for heck of it.

We really had no idea of where to go once we got to Lenox for some food, as none of us had been there in a long time. We eventually just settled on the food court, where I got a not-so-good Nathan’s hot-dog. The main purpose of the trip though, if there was one, was to explore the Apple store, which I have never really gotten a chance to do since I’ve become such a big Apple fan.

I must say, it was one of the busiest stores I have ever seen on a non-special event day. People were everywhere; it was almost to the point that it was difficult to get around. Even so, there were plenty of displays of everything to go around. I barely had to wit to get to play with an iPhone, and there were times that two or three were sitting open, and I didn’t have to wait at all to play with a MacBook Pro, my next target after the iPhone. It was a good and interesting trip to see all of the people there and know that Apple is certainly gaining popularity.

Upon leaving Lenox Square, I witnessed roadkill… yes… roadkill, as it happened. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually watched an animal get hit on the road before. A squirrel hopped down from a tree and started across the road. It tried to dash under the car in front of us and apparently got knocked around by the undercarriage but finally got his footing to where it could try to dash out, but unfortunately the slight delay put him right under the tire. Poor thing came out from under it, and it sort of stood up, it really looked ok, but then it just went rigid and flopped over, almost in a cartoony way sadly. Oh well, I generally hate squirrels so it’s not like I’m mourning or anything, just though it was kind of interesting.


Note- Most of this post was written on Sunday, July 29, however it is all written as if on Saturday, July 28, when all of the events took place..

Well it was... interesting...

Well... the bike show was certainly interesting, to say the least. Some bikes looked like they had been through the junkyard while others, like the one pictured here looked quite nice. I guess it wasn't really as big of a show as I had kind of expected but there were still quite a few bikes there. I still think my favorite thing though, as it usually is at motorcycle events, was reading the helmet stickers.

Motorcycle Show

I will be going to a motorcycle show later today with my dad and a friend of his, so I will be sure to bring back plenty of pictures and stories. Right now though, I have just finished doing some work on my driver education course and am just listening to music, making this completely pointless post. I need to go get a picture of the bull for the market or something, but I haven't quite got around to it... hmm, perhaps I should do that.

Call me a quitter....

Well I've pretty much quit band. A very tough decision to be sure, but there were a whole lot more reasons personally for me to quit than for me to stay. For one thing those dang tenors are just too heavy for me, being as relatively small as I am. There were also I don't know how many things I had to miss last year because of band, usually things I much rather would have done than the said band event. The classes I can take in place of band such as photography and video production just suit my interests much better anyway, and are much less time consuming. Sure I like being a musician, and I still will be, playing guitar and such, but I'm just not that passionate about it really.

Practice itself today is part of what pushed my decision ahead. Marching those drums for four hours was I think about the least enjoyable thing I've ever done in my life. I really think I'd rather have my wisdom teeth out all over again that what I did this morning. I know it's something you have to get used to but even so, some people are better suited to it than others, and when it's something I guess I''m not all that crazy about in the first place it just doesn't make sense to push myself that hard, especially when it's something I'll only do until I'm out of high school anyway.

I guess I really have mixed feelings about quitting. It feels like a huge burden lifted off me to not have band to worry about, which is great, it was putting a lot of stress on me, but at the same time I really hate quitting, I know my parents were a huge asset as band boosters and I'll hate just not being part of the band. As I told my dad, I don't want to quit band, but there's nothing I want to do in band. Kind of a strange statement I know, but true.

Essentially to wrap things up, I've just decided that it's not to worth it to me to continue to burn so much time going to practice I don't want to go to in order to do something I'm not that passionate about. Sure I thought I wanted to beyond all reason, but it's just simply come to my realization that marching is not for me. I'll miss all the fun moments that band does bring with it... but for me its not worth all the very un-fun moments when there are plenty of other things out there that I will personally have more fun doing.

Hmm... time for business

I have just come to the realization that today is just about my last completely free day for a few weeks. Tomorrow I've got guitar lesson and such, so I'll be out and about most of the day. Then thursday we start precamp.... Needless to say, pre-camp is very long. Essentially it's 8am-3pm with an hour for lunch, usually about noon. Granted that's better than last year, when it was 8-4, but it's still a long time. We have that Thur, Fri, then Mon-Wed. After that is full-fledged band camp from Thursday to Sunday, which will be very hectic and probably accomplish nothing but bringing the band closer. We will probably get very little practiced. The week after that we only have two days of practice, but they're pretty brutal (8:30-2:30, 6-9). Anyway.... it's gunna be a hectic few weeks.

Harry Potter and Carriers

Well I said I would be back with a review for HP 5 and here it is! It is one amazing movie. The only thing wrong with it is the shortness, I mean seriously, how does the longest of the first five books end up as the shortest movie? It doesn't make sense. Oh well, what they do give is incredible. The acting is fantastic, and the action and effects are even more incredible. This is one movie I doubt very many people will regret seeing.

On another note, our new drum carriers for band got here... which is a very good thing for me. I'm not exactly the biggest guy on the drumline, so carrying tenors is slightly challenging, especially with a screwed up carrier. We didn't have a decent carrier for me to use so we had to sort of retro-fit an old vest-style snare carrier to temporarily carry the tenors. Needless to say it was extremely uncomfortable, and made marching incredibly difficult, but now our brand new shiny Dynasty carriers here and those days are over. These new carriers are much more comfortable, and hopefully won't leave huge bruises on my legs.

Blogging

Hmm... where to start... Well, really I'm currently in the works of creating a little more of a website, which will contain my blog, along with more stuff, but for the meantime I will keep a blog here. Granted yes I have messed around with blogs before but I'm a little more serious about it now.

I guess this post is more or less just to announce the blog and get it started. I did just see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, so I will post my report on that in a little while or in the morning, but right now I will continue working on setting this up. Enjoy!